Powered by start-up accelerator MassChallenge Switzerland, the FIA Smart Cities Global Start-up Contest selects promising mobility-focused start-ups from three zones (the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific), and gives them a platform to grow by connecting them to key mobility stakeholders.

Out of the more than 300 applications received for Season 5, 18 start-ups have been selected to participate in the pitching phase of the contest. On 23 June, the six start-ups selected for Europe had the opportunity to present their projects to a jury of international Mobility experts including FIA Smart Cities partners and Mobility Member Clubs. 

Projects presented during the European edition proposed a range of solutions to drive change in urban mobility systems and improve user experience, including platforms aggregating different types of data and transforming them into monetisable insights, an EV charging and energy management solution for global charge point operators and electric mobility service providers, and an autonomous driving and ADAS simulation platform driven by Artificial Intelligence. 

After deliberation, the jury selected the French start-up Transition-One as the winner of this edition. Transition-One designs and produces clean and sustainable mobility solutions to fight global warming and contribute to the end of fossil fuels. More practically, Transition-One designs a generic unit of retrofit made of an electric powertrain and a battery pack to convert internal combustion engine vehicles into electric ones in four hours. Transition-One’s first target is the European market, with a particular focus on France and on light cars (both commercial and passenger cars). Their commitment is to save 1 million tons of CO2 in ten years. For the moment, two prototypes are on the market and have travelled nearly 20,000 km and Transition-One is now pushing to get homologation for 5 new prototypes. The start-up is also working to industrialise the retrofit process in order to reduce the costs and conversion time. 

Visit Transition-One’s website to learn more.